The Birth of Man: Minecraft Film Releasing Free in 2014

Birth of Man, a Minecraft film fusing live-action characters and CG environments, has taken to Kickstarter to fund its production. Helmed by YouTuber and Freddie Wong co-creator Brandon Laatsch, Birth of Man is scheduled for a December 2014 release. Laatsch is seeking $600,000 in crowdfunding to make the movie a reality.

"My past 4 years of creating shorts on the ‘freddiew’ channel has been largely a study on what it is that our generation wants to watch," Laatsch told IGN. "The majority of these shorts have been based either directly on a video game franchise or on general themes that repeatedly show up in video games. After many iterations, my conclusion is that past film adaptations of games have betrayed the audience by diluting the content in order to reach a broader audience."

He continued, "Hollywood must do this in order to cover their massive budgets, and they continually hope that they’ll find the same magic formula that they found with comic book adaptations, where hardcore audiences and the masses can both enjoy them. However, the feedback that I’ve gotten from the gamer culture is that the elements of my shorts that they latch onto the most are the elements that no mainstream audience could ever get, so it is essential to make a film that assumes that you are onboard with Minecraft."

For those who don't know much about the game itself, Laatsch expects Birth of Man to be approachable, but it won't spend time justifying why the world operates the way it does. "One of the best things about adapting a game that has no set story or character to film is that there is nothing missed story wise by not playing it. The story that Birth of Man tells will be understandable and exciting regardless of whether you have played the game or not."

Furthermore, Laatsch specifically wants to avoid "origin story syndrome," while giving fans what they want and expect. "The attitude towards this production is respectful to the game, just like Chris Nolan was respectful to the Batman source material."

Laatsch concludes his Kickstarter pitch by stating, "This will surely be the greatest challenge that my team and I have ever faced, but it's what we've been preparing for ever since we decided that we want to make movies."